Cattle are often housed in confinement barns during the cold winter months. They may also be housed in confinement barns during hot summer months. Mild cows produce more milk if they are protected from very cold weather as well as from very hot weather. Cattle that are grown for their meat gain weight faster if they are protected from very cold weather as well as very hot weather. In a confinement facility cattle can also be protected from files and other insects. Cattle in a typical confinement facilities are provided access to water and to a balanced ration. Each animal in the facility has a stall. There is normally a wall at one end of each stall. The stalls are separated by free stall dividers. The dividers are pipes bent into the general shape of a horse shoe. The free ends of each divider pipe are connected to the wall. The open end of the stall is generally identified by curb. An alley extends some distance from the curb to a parallel curb and another row of stalls. The alley has sufficient width to permit each animal to move freely to and from a feeder and a water trough. The alley is a flat concrete slab with a uniform width. In many confinement barns, a scrapper moves the length of the alley periodically and scrapes liquid and solid cattle excrement from the alley and into receivers at the ends of the alley. A tractor mounted scraper can also be used to clean an alley. The alley is preferably cleaned frequently to keep the alley surface as clean and dry as possible.
The stalls have stall floors covered with sand. Cattle lying in a stall tends to create a depression and compact the sand. Liquids collect in the depressions. Compacted sand tends to hold water. Mud and wet sand in the depressions sticks to cattle laying in the depressions creating an uncomfortable condition and possibly an unhealthy environment for cattle.
During the winter, in areas with temperatures well below freezing, the wet sand may freeze. Frozen wet sand is cold, hard, and uncomfortable for cattle. The current procedure for keeping cattle relatively free of wet sand and mud is to add clean sand to fill the depressions in the stalls. The sand that is added is expensive. Excess sand in the stalls tends to migrate over the curb and into the alley. Sand in the alley mixes with the liquid and excrement thereby increasing the quantity of material to be removed from the alley, stored and discarded. From time to time all the sand in the alley must be removed, discarded and replaced by clean and relatively dry sand. The frequent addition of sand to keep stalls relatively dry and clean results in a substantial material handling and disposal tasks that are expensive. It is also difficult to store clean replacement sand in an unfrozen state during winter months in northern areas.